Minestra di Verdure Estive/ Summer Vegetable Soup

I like to eat soups in the height of summer, not necessarily cold soups, but light minestre of vegetables in season. They are thrown together and take around 20 minutes to cook, using whatever is abundant in the garden.

Summertime soup
Summertime soup. Keeping photos real with lots of red slurp.

This vegetable soup is similar to the French Soupe au Pistou in many ways, but I am waiting on the garden’s fresh borlotti, i fagioli scritti, and green beans, before I go down that Provençal path.

Ingredients.

  • 1 onion, finely sliced
  • 1 garlic, finely chopped,
  • 2 tablespoons EV olive oil
  • 4-5 chopped Roma tomatoes
  • 1 medium zucchini, finely sliced
  • 1 can of drained and well rinsed chick peas or white cannellini beans
  • ¼ jar of home-made or purchased tomato passata
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • small broken pieces of Mafaldine (flat ribbon) pasta or other dried pasta on hand
  • salt and pepper
  • freshly made pesto from a handful of basil leaves, two cloves garlic, salt, olive oil and pecorino, bashed to a pulp in a mortar and pestle. (Leave the nuts out when serving with soup.)
  • grilled bruschetta to go with the soup.

In a large heavy pot, add a generous slurp of olive oil and gently cook a sliced onion and a chopped garlic until soft but not coloured. Then add the vegetables as listed, stirring each new addition for a minute or so as you go. When they are almost cooked, after around 15 -20 minutes. add the some broken pieces of Mafladine and cook until the pasta is al dente. Season well. Serve in wide bowls with a dollop of freshly made basil pesto.

Paranzo All'aperto.
Pranzo all’aperto. Minestra di verdure estive.

The pasta Mafaldine was named in honour of Princess Mafaldine of Savoy, daughter of King Vittorio Emmanuele 111, and is also known as reginette or “little queens”.

38 thoughts on “Minestra di Verdure Estive/ Summer Vegetable Soup”

  4. Looks delicious, Francesca. I have been hungering for soup lately too, even with 37 and 38 degree temps! I have a delicious spring vegetable soup which I modified (probably sacrilege!) from one by Ramond Blanc that is delicious, and recently I tried one called Lasagna Soup that is made in the slow cooker and it was also delicious. Both use very similar ingredients to this one and now you’ve made me hungry for soup again!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. lasagne soup in a slow cooker- that sounds interesting.
      I tried to use my slow cooker again, thinking that it might come in handy for the beach camp, but everything turns out badly. and I hate not being able to see what’s going on in there. It has a metal lid that is forced into place. A bad choice of a cooker.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. That’s too bad about the metal lid. Both of mine have had glass lids and it is helpful. The lasagne soup calls for Italian sausages, but I substituted with turkey mince flavoured with fennel seed, salt, pepper and chilli flakes and it exceeded my expectations. Will email you the recipe if you’d like it.

        Like

        Reply

        1. I can’t use my cooker until I get one with a better lid. I am at the beach this weekend and will look for one in an op shop with a glass lid. The metal one doubles as a pressure cooker and that is a failure also. Talk about a waste of $90 or more. I should just through it into the bin or turn it into a pot for growing succulents. When I find a cheapy, I’ll email you Ardys. I can leave out the meat.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. Most did, the garlic, tomato, tomato passata, zucchini, basil, came from the garden, making it a rather cheap meal with a can of ceci and a bit of broken pasta.
      February has turned out to me the most glorious month- no hot winds, no heatwaves. every day feels like a picnic after our morning work is done.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thanks Roger, it moved us outside, to eat under a large shady tree, with a bottle of crisp white wine, followed by a read in bed and an afternoon nap on a 32c degree day.

      Like

      Reply

  14. I so agree with you, Francesca. I, too, enjoy soup in the middle of summer and a bowl of vegetable soup is a favorite. With vegetables at their peak, it seems a waste not to put up a pot of soup with them. That’s a beautiful shot, too.

    Like

    Reply

  15. I love the colour of your soup 🙂 It’s underrated as a light summer meal I think particularly as in-season produce abounds… and that’s understating it. When we first moved and concurrently were being gifted shopping bags of tomatoes I inadvertently made soup in the slow cooker processing them. It was delicious, simple & welcome. Now there are no free tomatoes coming in the door, the freezer stash reduces nicely into a sauce.

    Like

    Reply

Now over to you.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.